


Moving On (Without You): Something I Can't Do

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [209]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Accidental dad, Drinking, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Relationships Foiled By Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 13:02:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13904568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: There's a genie in a bottle of truly awful beer, and Gladio finds her more than he'd like.





	Moving On (Without You): Something I Can't Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Momokitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Momokitty/gifts).



> 100+ Words Meme  
> Two and a Number Meme: Gladio and ghost of dead girlfriend (FFXV) [#73: I. Can't.]

The first time he sees her, he's three sheets to the wind. Maybe four. How drunk he is irrelevant; he's clearly not drunk _enough,_ because he has enough sense of mind to stumble to his feet, a bottle of shitty beer in one hand and the other outstretched after her, like he can stop her from walking if he catches her quick enough. And he tries, honestly, but it's pissing rain and he slips on the slick walk, has to catch hisself on a lamppost-- and when he looks up after her, she's vanished.

(The first time he sees her, he's drunk on pain and losing blood, holding onto a hunter who's name he didn't catch as they half-drag him out of a cab. No cars inside Lestallum's city limits, it's all foot traffic and bicycles, rickshaws with extended seats and little beds making up ambulances. Not every rickshaw in the city has been donated to Lestallum's Hospital, but invariably any rickshaw was better than none of them, even if he _did_ bleed all over it.

He spills onto the gurney with little effort and a couple of orderlies rush him inside, the hunter giving the attending doctor the run on his laundry list of issues. She's pretty, and he tells her so _\--_ but of course everyone is pretty when he's lost this much blood, and the compliment is easy to wave away, but he means it. She's _pretty._

"You're busy dying. Please stop flirting with me until you're not doing that anymore."

"Sure.")

 

He's drunk the second time, too. Maybe a little more than the first.

("You shouldn't be in too much pain. We might not be able to synthesize opiates like they could in the Crown City, but you would be surprised how many people are growing poppy in greenhouses.")

 

The third time's worse. He can make out more of her shape, this time, the curve of her face, the outline of a physician's coat. He's not nearly drunk enough for this, and he downs another bottle of awful beer. If he drinks enough, it will start to taste okay.

If he drinks enough, he wont see her as well.

("Gladiolus Amicitia, put yourself back in that hospital bed."

"Sorry doc, got places to be, people to see."

She'd frowned sharply and, armed with a hypo, figured out how to put him back into bed. He'd fought the whole way, of course-- but she had come with the _really good_ drugs.)

 

 

 _You shouldn't drink,_ his conscience tells him often. It usually sounds like Ignis, concerned about his health, both as his friend and as the King's Advisor. It sounds like her sometimes, though. Sometimes it's enough to make him put the bottle down. Not today, though he's lost count of how many times the shade of her has watched him from across the street, looking disapproving in the set of her shoulders.

He's both too drunk and not drunk enough, to see her, to handle her being there. He doesn't see her every time, so that's good, but it's not exactly an improvement over seeing her. He leans back against the wall and tries to pretend she's not out there. She wouldn't be out in this part of the city anyway; even when they were dating, she'd never go more than ten blocks from the hospital.

"Gladio," one of the hunters greets him, meandering up. There's a few bottles of Jette's in hand. It's not more beer and Gladio already doesn't want it. He accepts one when it's offered to him, though, lets the hunter pull up a concrete square to plant his ass on, tries not to think about how he's so predictable they can figure out where he's at without ever having to ask him of his own plans.

Realistically he should go down to the hospital, get the stitches on his side looked at. The Night isn't looking like it's going to be lifting anytime soon, and he needs to be in top shape to keep Noct's people safe. _Realistically_ if Gladiolus goes back down to the hospital right now, he's going to need a lot more than beer to quell harsh memories. The medic from Cauthess had been perfectly good at his job. Gladio's perfectly willing not to pay it any mind, to just take it easy over time.

"So... you wanna talk about it?" the hunter asks, when the silence has stretched uncomfortably long. Gladio shrugs. He really doesn't.

He finds himself doing it anyway.

There's a young boy in the hospital's child care ward, about five years old now, the nurses said. Broke his leg climbing on things he shouldn't have been climbing on, lived in Lestallum's streets and the nooks born of angled buildings and bottlenecks. He has his mother's dark hair and her dark skin but Gladio's red eyes, and Gladio hadn't realized he'd _existed_ until today, when one of the nurses had recognized the King's Shield as Doctor Chiffon's 'main squeeze' up until last year, when the last symptoms of the Starscourge had presented themselves and Gladio's on again, off again girl (mostly off again; neither of their works meant they could _have_ a steady relationship, and this arrangement worked out will for them) had finally succumbed to it.

He's over thirty but he's not ready to be a parent to a child he doesn't know, and he sips on his _this is not beer, why is it not beer?_ and tells the hunter so.

"Well. Sounds like she didn't leave you that many options, but it also sounds like the kid doesn't know, either? And he made it this long without you--"

"He's five. He shouldn't have to make it without his parents."

"Did this Ivy girl of yours even tell you he existed?" the hunter demanded, and Gladio--

She hadn't, of course. They had talked about kids, once, talked about marriage and doing things after sunrise, having a home of their own. Duty came first for Gladio, and marriage and kids were a part of that, and he had been planning on that for ages, but. It had never felt right?

Her body had been incinerated in the power plant. That was how things worked, in Lestallum, and it helped to destroy the Starscourge. But now he had two gold rings on his necklace and no desire to give them to anyone else. And Ivy had _never_ mentioned a kid...

The shade across the street brushed her fingers over her coat. Gladio put it as white despite only seeing the outline of it on her, the shape where it distorted shoulders and hips and thighs. Then she turned on her heel and started to walk away.

Maybe that's what she wanted? Him to follow, to keep up?

Gladio sipped at the Jette's and didn't move, this time. The hunter wasn't even looking at her, and the last thing he needed was for people to think he was a _crazy_ alcoholic in addition to everything else.

But next time, he'd make the drinks take longer. Ivy wasn't here to reset his nose if he broke it tripping up the stairs.


End file.
